


The Devil's Due

by sofyachy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bureaucracy, Drarry Strugglefest 2020, Financial Issues, Fluff and Humor, Light Bondage, M/M, Taxes, accountancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25635211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofyachy/pseuds/sofyachy
Summary: OH NO! No one taught Harry useful skills at Hogwarts like managing his estate and filing his Wizard taxes!! If he doesn't get them done on time - what?! - his incompetence will be plastered across The Daily Prophet in addition to hefty fines?? It's up to Junior Tax Accountant Draco Malfoy to show him the light!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 20
Kudos: 98
Collections: Drarry Strugglefest 2020





	The Devil's Due

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mx_Maneater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Maneater/gifts).



> Written for Drarry Strugglefest 2020. Many thanks to Mx_Maneater for the prompt, which I liked so much that I made it the fic summary. :-) This prompt really leaped out and tackled me, and while I wish I could do it better justice, I hope you enjoy it anyway!

It was a truth universally unacknowledged that Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, was bad at math.

Sure, he did well enough in primary school to outperform Dudley (though that wasn’t exactly much of a challenge). Then he went to Hogwarts. And while he learned many skills necessary to magical life, what he did not learn was any application of numbers beyond his primary education.

Nor, unfortunately, did he learn about those non-magical necessities of magical life, such as paying Wizard taxes.

This is why he was utterly surprised when he received a howler from the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Overdue and Unpaid Revenue (DOUR).

“Harry, I can’t believe you haven’t been paying your taxes!” Hermione cried in disbelief shortly after Harry flooed to the house she shared with Ron and showed her the letter in a wild-eyed panic.

“How was I supposed to know?” Harry cried in frustration.

“Everybody has to pay taxes, mate,” Ron said, knocking out one of Harry’s pawns with his rook. Harry sighed.

“How bad is it?” Hermione asked sympathetically.

“They say that I have to figure out back taxes for the Black estate, plus the three years since I’ve been seventeen, within the next two weeks. If I don’t, they say they’re going to audit me, charge me ten thousand galleons in fines, and post a notice in the Prophet about my negligence.” Harry buried his face in his hands. “I don’t even know where to begin!”

Ron shuddered. “Good luck, mate. I don’t know what to tell you about estate taxes, but you do _not_ want to be audited. That’s when the Ministry bends you over and has its way with you.”

“ _RON_!” Hermione yelled, scandalized. She slapped his arm.

“Maybe Neville would know an accountant who could help you?” Ron rubbed his sore arm. “He’s taken over managing things at home for his gran. You should try asking him.”

\---

“I’m writing you a to-do list,” said Wilford Woodletter, the accountant Neville had recommended. Woodletter had served the Longbottom family for four decades and was highly acclaimed. He kept his face in a professionally neutral expression that Harry suspected was masking the sort of face that Snape used to make at him in every Potions class.

“You will need to find out who is responsible for managing the Black estate and ask them how to file the estate taxes. That will be seventy-five galleons for my services.” He jotted the information down on a piece of parchment and handed it to Harry. The to-do list had only two items.

Harry paid up, took his seventy-five-galleon to-do list, and left Woodletter’s office feeling worse than when he had started.

\---

After two days of searching Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Harry had finally tracked down a box of files related to the house and the Black estate. The estate was apparently somewhere in the Cotswolds and had a small acreage of farmland that had been managed by a wizard named Thomas Pendleton who lived on another piece of farmland nearby.

Harry found his floo address and flooed him immediately. Rather than a floo call, however, Pendleton insisted on inviting him over to tea.

“Taxes?” Pendleton scratched his head after handing Harry a cuppa. He had thinning grey hair and looked to be in his eighties. He at least seemed kinder and more patient than Woodletter, Harry thought.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you how to file the taxes,” he continued with an apologetic smile. “I usually send that information off to my accountant.”

Harry could feel the frustration pushing against the edges of his control. “I don’t suppose you could recommend an accountant who is familiar with the property?”

“Oh, you’ll want Dunlap, there’s no one better,” Pendleton told him. “Except he died about a month ago. Terribly tragic, really.”

Harry closed his eyes and tried to push back the smoke that threatened to come out of his ears. He could remain calm. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “How did he die?”

“Old age. Or maybe it was the boating accident. Bit of both, probably. There comes a time when old wizards aren’t meant to magic their way through the Bermuda Triangle in a rowboat during hurricane season, if you ask me. But he had a young fellow as an apprentice. I can’t remember his name, but he’s taken over the business since Dunlap passed away. Let me see,” Pendleton began rifling through a large stack of papers on a desk in the corner. “Ah! Here we are!”

Harry scrambled for a quill and parchment, ready to jot down a name and floo address. Just as his fingers found the quill in his pocket, it leaped out and skittered across the floor under the adjacent chair. Harry ducked onto his hands and knees to reach for it.

Instead of reading off the accountant’s information, however, Pendleton threw a pinch of floo powder into the fire and called a name Harry would have least suspected.

“Malfoy!”

Harry’s blood ran cold.

He didn’t have time to process what was happening before a highly polished pair of black shoes and pressed wool trousers stepped out of the floo. Harry looked up and wished he could go back in time and never let this scenario ever happen.

Malfoy towered above him, all long legs and slender torso, his white-blond hair styled immaculately in a short cut that flattered his face. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw Harry, but he masked the emotion quickly behind a cool, impassive demeanor.

“Potter,” Malfoy nodded stiffly. “What are you doing on Pendleton’s floor?”

Harry quickly grabbed the quill and stood up. “Malfoy,” he nodded back. “Nice snitches you have on your socks.” Malfoy frowned.

“I see you two already know each other!” Pendleton clapped his hands together in delight. “Capital!”

The old man brought Malfoy up to speed on the issue over another round of tea. Harry tried to concentrate more on his cuppa than on the familiar blond nemesis, who was trying to hide a smirk behind his own cuppa.

“My, my, Potter. Not paying your taxes? _Tsk_.” Harry frowned. Malfoy’s lips were smirking again, in a way that Harry couldn’t help but stare at. Harry had never liked Malfoy, so it was all the more infuriating that he had grown into a very unfairly handsome man.

“Nevertheless, I think I can help,” Malfoy continued. “I have an opening tomorrow morning at ten. Come to my office with your papers from the Ministry and the Black estate, and I’ll see what I can do. Can’t have the Savior of the Wizarding World fall behind on his taxes!” He grinned and handed Harry a small card with his floo address.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” Harry took the card with a roll of his eyes.

\---

Malfoy’s office was not what Harry expected --- full of sunlight, plants, and a small tabletop water fountain in one corner. On one wall he had framed his diploma from Hogwarts as well as another certificate proclaiming him a Certified Accountant of the Wizarding World, Junior Class.

“I didn’t know you were a CAWW,” Harry commented.

Malfoy shot him an irritated look that had no business being sexy. Harry cast that thought aside as quickly as he could. He really needed to put a damper on his libido if he was going to make it through this ordeal.

“Right,” Malfoy said, schooling his features into professional indifference. “Show me your L-539, 4187-DFW, and 4817-WFD forms. Maybe I can make heads or tails of them.”

“Erm…” Harry blinked. “I don’t remember getting those forms.”

“The Ministry owls the L-539 forms to all employees with exact figures for gross annual wages,” Malfoy explained, slowly and carefully as if Harry were the dumbest creature he’d ever met. “Gringotts owls the 4187-DFW forms with information on interest earned on your vault, and the 4817-WFD forms to indicate interest on landholdings. All of these forms would have been sent on lavender-colored parchment in February.”

“Wait,” Harry said, clinging to a faint memory. He did remember getting more than the usual number of letters on lavender-colored paper in February, but--- “Were they also lavender-scented?”

“Yes,” Malfoy replied. “It’s meant to have a calming effect.”

Oh.

_Oh._

“Imavbrntm,” Harry muttered.

“What was that?” Malfoy looked at him sharply.

“I may have burnt them,” Harry sighed.

Malfoy dropped his quill. “What in Merlin’s name for?!”

“I thought they were love letters!” Harry cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “I take all of my pink and purple mail that comes in February and burn it without reading it first.”

Malfoy’s left eye twitched. He stared at Harry for several long, pointed seconds, while Harry tried not to squirm. Why was Malfoy making him feel this nervous?

“Very well,” Harry’s Slytherin accountant finally sighed, “You should be able to write to the Ministry and Gringotts and request replacement forms. Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve been burning your monthly bank statements as well.”

Harry’s ears felt hot in embarrassment.

“Do you have any idea how much money you have in your vaults? Even in the vaguest sense?” Malfoy asked.

Harry looked up at the ceiling, trying to picture the inside of his vault. “I think there are about thirteen or fourteen piles,” he answered.

“Piles,” Malfoy echoed with a glare. Harry felt ice-fold grey eyes burn into him.

“Yeah, about _so_ high,” Harry added, holding up his hand as measurement.

Malfoy continued to glare.

“Look, it’s not as though I’ve needed to know the exact numbers before! When I need money, I just go in and fill a bag.”

Eventually, Malfoy looked away and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. “ _You’re_ going to owe _me_ a life debt after this,” he muttered so faintly Harry wasn’t entirely sure if he had heard it or just imagined it.

Harry nodded. “That’s fair.”

Malfoy jerked his face back towards Harry and schooled his features. “Let’s meet again tomorrow morning after you’ve collected the forms.”

\--

The next morning, Harry returned to Malfoy’s office and handed him a stack of forms. Malfoy frowned.

“Potter, why did you bring these?”

“Erm, because you asked?”

“I asked you to bring your L-539, 4187-DFW, and 4817-WFD forms. These are L-593, 4187-WFD, and 4817-DFW forms.” He tossed them back across the desk at Harry as if they had personally offended him somehow.

Harry looked at the labels at the top of each form and squinted. “Are you sure you don’t have those numbers backwards?”

Malfoy’s face turned a shade of pink that Harry hadn’t seen since their Hogwarts days. His nostrils flared slightly.

“ _I_ don’t have the numbers backwards,” he said slowly in a soft voice that made Harry shiver involuntarily. “But I’m beginning to understand how you could fail Potions so badly.”

Harry flushed. He should have been angry. He really should have. But instead, he felt a tiny thrill run down his spine.

“I’m going to write down the form numbers on a little sheet of parchment,” Malfoy continued, scribbling with his quill. “Then all you have to do is go to the relevant offices and point at the numbers with your greasy little finger.” He shoved the parchment at Harry. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

\---

The sound of a whip cracked deafeningly through the room. Harry looked up to see Malfoy, shirtless, dressed only in tight black leather pants and gleaming black patent boots. Harry would have gaped, were it not for the ball gag in his mouth. He struggled uselessly against the handcuffs on his wrists.

“Bend over, Potter,” Malfoy sneered as he tossed the whip into a corner. “You’re about to be _audited_.”

He grabbed Harry’s wrists and bent him over the edge of his desk, the sound muffled by the little water fountain in the corner. In one swift, adept move, he yanked down Harry’s trousers and pressed against him from behind.

Harry gasped. He struggled, writhing, his limbs trapped. Then he squirmed and shouted.

Wait.

What happened to the ball gag?

Harry blinked. He looked around the room, blurry as it was without his glasses. Why was it blurry? Where were his glasses? How did it get so dark?

He sighed as reality hit him. He was lying awake in bed, his arms twisted in the sheets.

He rolled over and sighed up at the ceiling. This truly was a terrible time for his libido to decide that it had a thing for Malfoy again.

\---

The next day, Harry nervously pushed a stack of paperwork at Malfoy.

“What’s got into you?” Malfoy asked.

Harry blushed. “Er---”

“Never mind, you’ve at least got the right forms today,” Malfoy continued, he eyes focused on the papers in front of him. “Well, well,” he said, holding up the Gringotts form. “Three million, two hundred eighty-seven thousand, five hundred and twenty-three galleons to your name. _Piles_ , indeed.” He smirked.

Harry was experiencing a private internal meltdown, too distracted by those pink lips and the little vee of Malfoy’s neck not obstructed by his collar to fully process what the other man was saying.

“That’s not including the Black estate,” Malfoy continued, holding up another form. “Looks like the farm has been doing well. One hundred acres of winter wheat, sixty of rapeseed, plus the apple orchard. You might tell Old Pendleton to rotate in a legume next summer to replenish the soil quality, but in general, it’s a thriving property.”

Malfoy always did have the most elegant fingers, which were now sliding along the sheet of parchment as he read and analyzed the numbers it contained. Harry couldn’t help silently appreciating them.

“The Black family always did make the best cider,” Malfoy commented, a wistful look overtaking his features. “I bet you didn’t know their family motto referred to the brewing process, eh? _Toujours Pur_. It means you won’t get a hangover if you drink too much of it. I’ll thank you to send me a case when all is said and done here, on top of my professional fee, of course.”

“Go out with me,” Harry blurted.

Malfoy looked up in shock. “What?”

“I--- er--- well,” Harry stammered. His face took on the color of a ripe tomato.

“I don’t date clients,” Malfoy said bluntly.

“Oh.” Harry nodded slowly and tried his best to mask his disappointment.

“Anyway,” Malfoy continued breezily, “I think I have all the information I need to proceed. I will send you an owl when the tax documents are ready for you to sign.”

And that was that. Harry stood up stiffly and left the office.

\---

One week later, Harry received the owl to let him know that Malfoy had the documents ready for his signature, and to come to his office.

“Sign this tax form which will go to the Ministry,” Malfoy instructed, pointing at a line at the bottom of a roll of parchment as Harry dipped his quill into the inkpot. The desk was covered in various sheets of parchment awaiting Harry’s signatures.

“Now, sign here to allow Gringotts to forward the tax payment directly to the DOUR,” Malfoy continued as Harry scribbled his signature. “Sign this form to tell Gringotts to mail your bank statements on plain instead of lavender-colored parchment, and this other form to tell the Ministry the same.” Harry scribbled.

“Finally, sign here to acknowledge receipt of my services and allow Gringotts to send me seventy-five galleons in payment thereof.”

Harry looked up. “Only seventy-five galleons? Wilford Woodletter charged me just as much for a short to-do list.”

Malfoy smirked. “That’s the financial advantage of hiring a Certified Accountant of the Wizarding World, Junior Class,” he explained. “When I reach Woodletter’s level of seniority, I could charge you that amount for merely stepping into my office.”

Harry grinned and signed. “Thanks, Malfoy,” he said, and stuck out his hand.

Malfoy looked at it for a moment before shaking his hand. When Harry started to let go, the blond only tightened his grip. Harry looked into his grey eyes in surprise.

“Oh, and one more thing, Potter? You are officially no longer my client.” Malfoy flashed him a dazzling smile. “Pick me up at eight o’clock. Now that I know what sort of finances you have at your disposal, I expect you to take me to someplace very expensive for dinner. Dress appropriately.”

Harry smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate any and all comments and kudos. :-)


End file.
